Vote of Thanks to the Lord Mayor

Vote of Thanks to the Lord Mayor Proposed by the City High Sheriff, Alderman Richard H. Beamish and Seconded by Mr. Maurice Healy M.P., Member of Parliament for Cork City. Reply by Lord Mayor.

(As reported in Cork Examiner 17th January 1912)

The City High Sheriff (Alderman Beamish) proposed a hearty vote of thanks to their Lord Mayor. He used the words “their Lord Mayor” advisedly, for he thought that since the Lord Mayor came to preside over the City of Cork he had been unanimously liked and cared for by all creeds and al citizens (hear, hear).

He (the High Sheriff) remembered that at the time a year ago when the Lord Mayor was asked to occupy his present distinguished position, his diffidence was great – very nearly too great for the persuasive powers of his friends. His friends, however, knew that he was a better man than he thought he was himself. He was so quiet, so humble, that he never tried to put himself forward or to take the lead in any way. However they found out when he came to occupy the chair that he kept them all in order and did it with his own usually quiet but very successful manner (hear, hear).

He helped them in all their disputes, and every month as he proceeded showed him in a better aspect than the month preceding (hear, hear).

Mr. Maurice Healy M.P. said that he had been accorded the privilege of seconding the vote of thanks to the Lord Mayor which had been so felicitously proposed by the High Sheriff.

The Lord Mayor had many great virtues but he(Mr. Healy) had observed that he had the dreadful fault (laughter) – he thought he could almost call it a vice – and that was that he didn’t in the least seem to enjoy votes of thanks. He (Mr. Healy) had watched him during his year of office on several of these trying occasions (laughter) when he should have looked at his best, expecting to find an expression of satisfied contentment at the nice things said about him, but he had observed a critical look in his eye as if he were saying to himself what dreadful bother (laughter).

The very modesty of the Lord Mayor, which well became him, should not however , prevent them in that assemblage from doing him justice, and he (Mr. Healy) thought he was only doing him bare justice when he said that in the long roll of Mayors and Lord Mayors of Cork there had been no incumbent of the office who had filled it with more satisfaction to his fellow citizens (applause), and now at the end of what Mr. Crawford had well said as his first year of office, his tenure of the civic chair had been crowned by a most happy and auspicious event, the opening of those splendid and most beautiful schools, the presence of which in their midst was so largely due to the splendid magnificence of one of their fellow citizens (applause).

Cork had that day received a handsome new year’s gift. Sometimes, as they knew, they got handsome gifts and expensive gifts but when they examined them and thought about them they said to themselves that their utility was not at all in proportion to their handsomeness or their expensiveness. Cork had that day got a gift that was not merely handsome and expensive but of first -class utility to the city (hear, hear). They had got an important addition to the already numerous educational establishments which adorned the city. They had many such institutions all of them filling important functions, but he didn’t think there was one of them which in relation it bore to the future well-being and prosperity of their city was if more importance than that School of Science (hear, hear).

The vote was passed with acclamation.

The Lord Mayor in reply said that he had been deluged with compliments, but all he could say was that during his time conducting the business he had been called on to do he had tried to conduct it in a practical way, and if it had met with the approval of the citizens it was reward enough for him. He was very grateful to everybody present and to the citizens as a whole for the manner in which they spoke of him and for their approval of his actions.

The proceedings then ended, and the visitors were subsequently shown through the laboratories and class-rooms. A notable feature of the building is the fine wrought iron railing, 125 feet long set with ornamental panels, erected on the front boundary wall of the grounds facing Sharman Crawford Street. It is the work of Mr. John Buckley, general iron works, Half Moon street, as also are the gates and wickets.